Name: Howard Stern Is Sirius About Leaving Radio | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-09-09T15:00:43.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Howard Stern Is Sirius About Leaving Radio | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Howard Stern Is Sirius About Leaving Radio | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-09. Transcript available.

Howard Stern Is Sirius About Leaving Radio | David Letterman

welcome back to the show it's good to be here dave always a lot of controversy
when i come here
my career is never normal right there's always a lot of pressure but you wouldn't
want it any
other way would you no this is the way i love it and thank you for being here
tonight yes i um thank
you yeah you look great by the way i look good tonight you look tremendous you
look like you're
in good shape a team of people have put me together it's getting harder and
harder every
day so i'm trying to look good it's not easy i was not genetically blessed now
here's what i
here's what i know about your professional situation you announced a month ago
six weeks
ago that in like 2006 2005 you're leaving regular terrestrial broadcast radio
and going to a serious
satellite radio that's right that's right that's it thank you
it's a big decision for me what precipitated this well you know first of all
looking at my career
i've been in radio now over 20 years and when i got into radio dave i all i
wanted to do was to make the
medium exciting i wanted to get on the air make people laugh and have a lot of
fun and sort of
restructure the way people listen to the radio it was always boring and dull to
me as a kid and uh
it became very exciting to be on the radio in recent years because of the
government interference
and what's been going on with the fcc clear channel broadcasting doing my job
every day has become
increasingly difficult and you know i liken it to if you watch hbo and you
watch a chris rock concert you go
wow that guy's funny it's good stuff and it's and it's blue and it's it's
whatever his language is
if you were to take chris rock and put him on my radio station today you'd have
to cut out 99 of his
material you wouldn't laugh you would think chris rock sucked if you watched
him on my you know on my radio
station or on the on a network so it's become increasingly difficult to do my
show the same show
i did a year ago the government will find me for it i have millions of dollars
of fines against me
and this is my way of checkmating the united states government and saying you
know what i've got
somewhere to go we're going to build a new future this is the beginning of the
new age okay now that's
good thanks but you raise so many questions here uh first of all are you
suggesting that without uh
dirty material and things that would not be allowed on your radio show chris
rock is not funny is that
what you're saying yeah i am suggesting that i've seen chris rock in situations
where he cannot be
himself and i i can't be myself anymore on the radio i'm not looking to get on
the radio and say the f word
i'm not looking to to get on the radio and and make everything so blatantly
sexual that's not what this is
about i'm talking about 10 15 years ago the topics i used to talk about on the
radio i'm now being
fined millions of dollars for so where does it end you know just the other
night we see that on abc
a woman took off her towel in front of a football player and now we're talking
about possible fines
right what what's happened i mean it feels like we're in a religious country uh
this guy michael powell
the son of colin powell who is not elected to public uh office he's telling us
what we can hear
chairman of the fcc is telling us what we can hear okay let me go back to what
you said earlier you're
fighting three things one you mentioned clear channel yeah one you mentioned
the government
specifically and the fcc as the agency of the government how are those three uh
organizations
or how are those three entities conspiring or working if not conspiring against
you well i mean
you know i hate to be so serious yeah it is a conspiracy i hate to be be so
serious usually i come on
here and uh you know we have lots of laughs in fact i'll pull down my pants dave
will try to rub my
buttocks it'll be great if you want to do that we can do it now come on
it would be great to get a few fcc fines right here wouldn't it yeah but but
again tell me about
here's what i know about clear channel yeah and you know i'm not paying
attention to anything i'm just
doing my little dog and pony show here i read an article in uh rolling stone
this summer right your
channel uh owns 1200 radio stations i was many stations in the same market they've
essentially
wiped out individuality of the radio station and played havoc with the record
industry and the music
industry in live concerts i was stunned well yeah three corporations in this
country control 60 or more
of the radio audience three corporate entities yeah well and what that
translates to when you listen
to the radio now you're hearing music that uh you know it's so difficult to get
a record on the radio
this is you know when i made my decision to go to satellite radio it wasn't one
i made easily
i'm i'm one of the i think i'm the first broadcaster to walk away from an
empire i mean i make a lot of
money for viacom i make a great living i have millions of listeners and i said
to myself i don't think i'm
committed committing suicide going to pay radio i think this is the beginning
this is the only place
left to go when you turn on that serious radio which i listen to it all weekend
no commercials if
you're into bluegrass country music from the 60s not the 70s the 60s you can
have that yeah and it's
fascinating you want the jet game you can hear the jet game and they post the
scores across the dial i can
go i'm programming three channels over there now and they will be revolutionary
i will be able to do
what i want uh so i'm walking away from something millions of listeners as i
understand it uh the
reason there is government control of broadcasting the way you do it now is
because you're broadcasting
over the public airwaves that's right and that's a public trust and the broadcasters
have to protect
that public trust and if they violate that public public trust then there will
be government intervention
now how is it any different if the radio signal is bounced off a satellite and
then back down through
the airwaves and why won't you be subject to future restrictions at satellite
radio well the difference
is my listeners now if they come with me and i hope they do and that's sort of
why i'm here you know
i want to i want them to come
to answer your question for 40 cents a day right when you pay for something you're
paying for it
to come into your home much like cable or anything else and in the beginning of
cable everyone said well
i'm not going to pay for tv when you hear the difference when you hear the the
type of programming
we can put on you will see that 40 cents a day is not too much and that's the
reason the government
cannot regulate it if you're paying for it it's not the public airwaves we don't
get any of this nonsense
you know fox was just fined 1.2 million dollars for a show no one watched and a
guy in an ex tv
guide writer went and researched three people complained three people
complained 1.2 million
what was the show it was called married to uh i don't know what the even the
show married to
something it was one of these reality shows three people complained how can we
have a democracy how
can we have an open exchange of ideas yes i mean you know we talk about sex but
come on i mean
everywhere in europe they talk about sex this is all taboo uh people are
getting fined we're being
told what we can listen to it's time for a change i'm going come with me please
that's all i'm saying
very simple now and by the way dave i've been unable to have this discussion on
the radio you know
they won't let you talk about it right yeah they'll allow me to say serious
radio and things like
that but i can't really discuss with my audience how to convert over to uh
satellite radio we'll
explain that but first of all you work for infinity is that right which is
owned by viacom by this
company which also owns the cbs television that's right yeah and and i can
remember years ago talking
to you you were complaining about you can have a conversation using sexually
explicit terms and be
in trouble for it whereas on the oprah winfrey show uh she she can talk about
penis all day and
nothing happens that's true i did a thing where i was on the air talking about
uh oral sex and uh i i
used i thought fairly tame language i got fined a million dollars for that oprah
winfrey had a show
about 13 year old girls who are giving oral sex their high school kids young
kids and the language was
very graphic and you compare the transcript side by side you'd say well if you're
gonna find me you got to
find oprah right and the chairman of the fcc said you know what we can't find
oprah because she's
beloved and you're not well you can't argue with that that's fairly true but
still give me a break
but i'm just trying to make a living dave yeah you know but is there is there a
difference
contextually if if there's a discussion on your show in that context does it
make it something we
can't have on the radio versus the context in oprah showing you say the topic
in both cases of oral sex
but is there a possible difference that you would recognize there or not no
yeah that's it quite simply
dave we're talking about the fact that nothing is fair anymore arbitrary
decisions are being made there
are decisions being made oprah's good we like her this has even gotten
political when i was working
for clear channel they fired me i think from nine stations on a whim and one of
the reasons they
fired me is i didn't support president bush clear channel is busy throwing uh
parties in markets for the
uh iraq war and i hardly think that's something you should be throwing a party
for they're throwing
rallies and uh so i didn't support that and the next day i was fired uh my
fellow broadcasters are
not standing up for me i am turning my back on regular terrestrial radio i
believe in five years
five years give me five years and i am telling you satellite radio will be the
dominant medium
in radio broadcasting it will be satellite and it will be serious now you uh
what i know about this
your audience is like nine million people is that nine million listeners a week
is pretty much what
you get i believe it's 37 million dave 37 million unless i checked you were 100
million weren't you
yeah that's right that's what it was no no we have we have about uh 15 15 16
million listeners and
and the the satellite outlets now reach about three million people is that
right yeah and and the one
that i'm going to right now this is this is the birth of something new 700 000
people right now subscribe
to serious radio and that's sort of daunting for me that's dangerous it's like
wow i'm used to flicking
a switch and talking to millions of people and that's tremendous thing there's
a there's a family there
and i i guess i'm here tonight to appeal to my family and say look i know i'm
asking you to pay for
something uh christmas time is here i think one of these little boxes is a
great gift
i don't want to go all qvc on you baby but you know um why not do it it's uh it's
a small investment
it is an investment in the future i believe it is a political movement because
i could have stayed in
regular radio made a very good living it really is in many ways you pioneered
the modern radio culture
and now and now i'm here to destroy it that's right but you're now taking
another step and and and if
you're right and many many people the serious people chief among them believe
that you are right right
this will once again uh turn the nature of radio upside down we're going to see
nature we're going
to see the nature of radio change and you know you know you were one of the
first people to put me on
national television and i think you were somewhat uh taken with what i did on
the radio and uh you called
me an innovator at that time i believe and i've never been more excited about
radio today i went out
and started uh handing out radios to people on the street now i don't do that
let's explain how people
get the service but let me ask you